And then a stranger rode into town

As I mentioned in some comments on Strident and Combative, there’s this new Mystery Commenter who goes by “Hammill,” who has been making me increasingly suspicious. It’s an odd bird. It turned up only recently, as far as I can tell – the first times I know of were to comment on a few posts at Josh Rosenau’s, which were about – oh what do you know – me, and Jerry Coyne, and me again.

Gosh, what does that remind me of?

I’m being sarcastic. I know damn well what that reminds me of. I know damn well who else had a decidedly peculiar obsession with me and Jerry Coyne, often to the exclusion of anyone else.

“Hammill” turns up elsewhere too – but always on places Jerry has been posting on, or I have, or both. It’s been getting like being followed, to write a post about something and an hour or two later find “Hammill” there, as if summoned by a dog-whistle.

I can agree with much of the substance coming out of the gnu atheist community but cringe mostly at its delivery. At times the rhetoric and invective makes me embarrassed to even be associated with them, however tangentially, as a nonbeliever.

Aw, really? Is that right? We embarrass you do we? That’s a shame. I tell you what: why don’t you set up a blog, maybe a group blog with a bunch of your imaginary friends, and start really getting to work on the subject of what it is you don’t like about new atheists. That would be fun, don’t you think? And you could have more of your imaginary friends write lots and lots and lots of comments, all saying things like “Oh golly gee, I thought I disagreed with you until I read that terrible post you linked to by that awful Coyne or that horrible Benson, and then by god I realized you were right and I think the whole thing is simply shocking.”

But maybe that sounds like too much trouble, and you’d rather just spend all your time posting comments at Rosenau’s and BioLogos and Rationally Speaking and Galactic Interactions. They will all keep your IP address secret, I’m sure.

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Wayne de Villiers. Wayne de Villiers said: And then a stranger rode into town – As I mentioned in some comments on Strident and Combative, there's this new Mys… http://ow.ly/1bcsQI [...]

You’ve posted a fair amount of very controversial, (and fairly good) material on several websites. Some commenters have taken exception to some of what you’ve written. One or two have perhaps made comments on different websites.

Ergo, utter meltdown. Claims that you’re being stalked. At least that’s the best I can figure out of this rant.

I know it’s Saturday night. Have you, perhaps, been drinking?

This is just embaressing. I’ve had B & W as my homepage for a couple of months now. But if this is what the whole thing has been reduced to, not for long I fear.

There is a familiar attitude that triggers reasonable suspicion. The commenter who, out of nowhere, takes exception to a general ‘tone’, a commenter who hasn’t appeared anywhere else, who focuses on just a few individuals and makes repetitive complaints about them. Most commenters have a hint of personality, at least, and a smidgen of history, and at least a couple of different interests. These mysterious agents, however, are one-note drive-bys, and especially when we’ve seen that same whine before under other names (especially names that were identified sock puppets!), I don’t think it’s at all out of line to cock an eyebrow and voice a little doubt about their sincerity.

Bloggers are also rightfully dismissive of people who announce that they’ve been devoted followers and then, in response to a single post they don’t like, abruptly announce that they’re thinking of leaving and call a calm and speculative post “utter meltdown”. I’ve had a few people try similar things on me. What I usually suggest is that you get some perspective: you may think you’re on familiar terms and that your relationship with the blogger is such that they are paying as much attention to you as you are to them, but honestly, every time some stranger tells me they’re leaving the fold, my first thought is “who the hell are you?” The second thought is “OK, bye, I had no idea who you were, I won’t notice your absence.” Your dramatic expression of concern and departure is noted, quickly forgotten, and was completely pointless.

(Note from the webmaster: this is, as far as I can tell, Greg’s first comment here. And his viewing history is consistent with someone who either has B&W as their homepage or has it bookmarked and visits every day.)

Yeah, he sounds like he attends a lot of conservation events. The thing is that we can’t tell whether he is just a real wuss, the return of Sockbatman (Kind of like Batman, except instead of using intimidation, he uses inane drivel), or a totally new stalker.

Indeed I will keep my commenters’ private data private (except where a commenter breaks the law or breaches community standards in a way that requires releasing the information in question), and I hope you do, too. I can confirm that Hammill has not posted under multiple names from the same IP addresses, and is therefore not a sockpuppet (at least at my site), which doesn’t tend to support your thinly-veiled accusation. Nor are all of Hammill’s comments on posts about you or Jerry (which is probably neither here nor there), but it is noteworthy that the comments are generally substantive, thoughtful, and not (that I recall) concern-trolling.

I know that we’re operating under Queen of Hearts rules here (“Sentence first, verdict afterwards”), but did you even ask any of the bloggers you mentioned about this commenter before assuming no one would help? I know you didn’t ask me, but maybe you gathered evidence and conducted your trial some other way. We might have found some privacy-protecting compromise if you bothered to ask.

This is not a court of law, a trial or an execution. Considering what we’ve been through in the past and what turned about to be the case with YNH/TJ, going on a bit of alert when certain tactics have a familiar feel to them is no sign of paranoia. We know we have enemies and we’ve seen some pretty good examples of the kind of lengths they’ll go to. If the real person in question is bothered by the attention, s/he can either modify the behaviour that’s attracting it or come to the table as a real person and allay suspicions. There’s a hell of a difference between what Ophelia is doing and a witch-hunt.

Sock puppet or not, I don’t know that a speculative post (on her own damn blog) is the end of the world. Or reason to stop reading the blog.

We all wonder about certain posters at times. I frequent a forum with a relatively small community, and it can get tricky when new blood comes in and posts stuff that’s just out of place. The line between oversensitivity and legitimate concern is tricky. Especially in the largely annonymous world of comment sections. Haven’t noticed hammil myself, but I tend to skim read comments sections.

I feel somewhat guilty for my part in this, as I’ve been pointing out Hammill to Ophelia, ever since Hammill got so interested in who the hell I was. I think I’ve only added my own suspicions and partial paranoia onto Ophelia for which I would like to apologise.

Ahhh! I was finding myself fresh out of irony this morning, and I was wondering what I was going to do, when Josh delivers a warm pot straight to my door! Almost makes one believe in a supernatural force of some kind…

You’d probably be more effective decrying overreactions if you managed to avoid it yourself. Just saying.

Ophelia was talking about a pattern of behavior that Hammill fit into quite distinctly, and the thing is, you haven’t actually established anything saying that she’s wrong – only that the IP address isn’t repeated under another name. After the John ThomasBig Johnson Tom Johnson affair, it certainly wouldn’t be hard to learn from that stupid mistake, would it? I have at least three IP addresses at my disposal at any given time, without even trying to disguise my identity.

I have to admit, when someone with virtually no posting history, no links, no website, and no real identity online starts worrying about their association with those dreaded “Gnus” in the only posts they’re actually making, my bullshit detector starts to go off. Do you have one of these? After all, “Gnu Atheist” is a self-description, a satirical spin on “New Atheists,” which has been treated as if it’s a specifically defined epithet. How can someone be worried about their association with a title they’ve never adopted? And of course, taking his thoughtful, substantive messages to the sources (either of the prominent blogs of the people he’s actually addressing) never occurred to him.

Sorry. While Ophelia might not actually be correct, she’s going with the evidence, and I’m inclined to agree with her. Accommodationists don’t exactly have a reputation for being forthright and objective, much less honest.

Accomodationists seem to want to define the real difference between them and Gnus as one of courtesy vs rudeness, but a difference in the degree of honesty is a lot more to the point. Fascinating to see how Jerry Coyne’s visit with the Chicago Methodists from about a week ago hasn’t become anyone’s “Exhibit A,” even though it’s a real and unchallenged example of precisely what we’re constantly being accused of doing the opposite of.

Nor are all of Hammill’s comments on posts about you or Jerry (which is probably neither here nor there), but it is noteworthy that the comments are generally substantive, thoughtful, and not (that I recall) concern-trolling.

I didn’t say all of Hammill’s comments were about me or Jerry; I pointed out and linked to three that were (all at your place).

The comments do generally have an appearance of substantive thoughtfulness, and of course the appearance and the reality can amount to the same thing. But…Tom Johnson did a fairly good imitation of substantive thoughtfulness at first, too. However both of them look exactly like concern trolling. My memory is probably fresher than yours, because I re-read some of them yesterday!

Anyway all this nonsense about off with its head is just that – “Hammill” is just a word. I can’t behead a word.

Finally: somebody who was concern trolling at Jerry’s and then commented here recently did turn out to be a sock puppet who created a lot of disruption here last summer and who also set up a blog and used it to throw a lot of mud at me (and some at Jerry). It’s not paranoia to think that there is at least one person out there who is willing to play sneaky games and who is particularly interested in me (and Jerry).

Double standards are rampant when it comes to us. Doesn’t matter what kind of stranglehold believers have on public life, what kind of abuses worldwide are the almost exclusive domain of believers, how overwhelmingly religious the viewpoints are that get trumpeted in books, articles, billboards and broadcast media – let an atheist be heard standing up for unabashed non-belief or criticism of what badly needs it in religion and that, finally, merits a backlash.

I just re-read Ophelia’s post at the top of this column. She talks about being suspicious, admits to being sarcastic and makes suggestions as to what a certain mystery commenter might profitably be doing instead of what s/he is doing and that’s about it. Not only is it not aggressive on its face, but even when searching only with that in mind, I couldn’t find a single phrase that might sound aggressive, even if taken out of context. And then along comes Josh Rosenau and writes:

I guess it’s easier to just shout “off with their heads!”

That’s an instance, and it’s far from an isolated one, that does absolutely convince me that some people (Josh Rosenau is hardly alone in this) simply have it in for us and does end up colouring the way I read everything those people write.

What Hammill does does in fact remind me of what “Tom Johnson” did. I read some of their comments side by side yesterday; they do sound alike in an interesting way. But I don’t know that they are one and the same. I think it’s possible, but I don’t know.

Now – is that grossly unfair to “Hammill”?

No. Why not? Because “Hammill” is just a name, and not a traceable name at that. “Hammill” has a few weeks’ worth of comments invested, and that’s all. If I damage “Hammill”‘s reputation by expressing these suspicions – which is the most I can do, and which is not a certainty – then I haven’t damaged anything very large or expensive. In any case “Hammill” has been using its anonymity to do damage to other people, so if “Hammill” gets some damage in return…is that unfair?

No.

“Hammill” of course is free to say what it likes about other people. But I am free to point out that there is something very dubious, at least, about people who don meaningless labels in order to spend a huge amount of time saying how evil a particular group of people is.

A little apprehensive about posting here (any kind of drama makes me nervous. I don’t think Ms. Benson is being paranoid and this is the internet afterall.) but from the posts of Hammil that I’ve seen he definitely comes off as a concern troll. His couple posts on nonprophet come to mind (but that whole blog sounds like tone trolling)

Not sure if this is just because of how tiny the ‘atheist’ blogosphere is but for the longest time I wondered why exactly I kept seeing Hammil after clicking on some news link on this site.

Hammill is definitely intelligent, articulate and completely disingenuous and dishonest. Hence the reason for the suspicion and paranoia, because his project is not to engage with gnus but engage with accommodationists and pander to their prejudices.

but it is noteworthy that the comments are generally…not (that I recall) concern-trolling.

Seriously? Well, I guess if you’re pretty much a professional concernist and fretter yourself, it’s probably become harder for you to recognize – like how people who work the docks get inured to the fishy smell.

…. I can confirm that Hammill has not posted under multiple names from the same IP addresses, and is therefore not a sockpuppet (at least at my site),”

Uh, no, you cannot confirm that Hammill is not a sock puppet, not even at your site. You can only confirm that Hammill is not sock puppeting under the **same** IP at your site. Funny how you confidently overstate your claims in order to get a dig in on Ophelia. Ironic, that.

I’ve been misusing the term “sock puppet” though. Josh Larios reminds me that sock puppets talk to themselves. Someone say grace/Signal/RPS isn’t a sock puppet in that sense, so not a sock puppet. I’d forgotten that it meant that…which is how Our Language goes to HELL. Heehee.

Egbert @ #22 – no, really, it wasn’t you. I didn’t even know you had mentioned any paranoia to me! (Memory like a sieve.) It was the popping up where I had just been – on that Lovley post, especially; and the popping up where Rosenau was busy misreading and misrepresenting me some more; and the popping up to say “it makes it so shaming to be an unbeliever” day after day. It wasn’t you, it was Hammill.

Generally, sockpuppeting is done to create the illusion of a larger consensus, which morphing is done to evade bans. Both are aimed at disguising the fact that it’s the same person making numerous comments. In these cases (and we don’t know how many we’re dealing with), it’s difficult to know which motive prevails at any given time.

I’ve been misusing the term “sock puppet” though. Josh Larios reminds me that sock puppets talk to themselves. Someone say grace/Signal/RPS isn’t a sock puppet in that sense, so not a sock puppet. I’d forgotten that it meant that…which is how Our Language goes to HELL. Heehee.

I’d say that is an overly strict definition of sock puppet. Sock puppets don’t necessarily talk to each other. Sock puppets can take each other’s side of an argument, with or without talking directly to one another, or the opposite side of an argument, just as a ventriloquist dummy is often the alter ego of the ventriloquist. The common denominator is the deliberate deception using multiple IDs to further the goals/enjoyment of the puppet hand. Or, at least, that is the way I think of them.

Posting to express concern just after a previously targeted individual might be significant, or maybe not. What has Hammill said beyond not wanting to be associated with Gnus (how is he associated?). What I get is he’s opinionated beyond “I just found out”. That’s not very worrisome, is it? Have I missed something? I skip around on the blogs so it wouldn’t surprise me if I had.

Ernie, no, in itself it’s not worrisome at all. In itself it’s just part of the dialogue. But it’s odd that Hammill never engages directly. Given past history (Greg please note), that makes me suspicious (that it’s hiding its IP address).

I know that we’re operating under Queen of Hearts rules here (“Sentence first, verdict afterwards”), but did you even ask any of the bloggers you mentioned about this commenter before assuming no one would help? I know you didn’t ask me, but maybe you gathered evidence and conducted your trial some other way. We might have found some privacy-protecting compromise if you bothered to ask.

I guess it’s easier to just shout “off with their heads!”

I did ask one blogger (not one I mentioned). Of course I didn’t ask you – I don’t consider you a fair dealer! To put it mildly.

I said how I gathered my evidence – it’s in the post. I made qualified claims – “as far as I can tell – the first times I know of” – and I said I was suspicious. I didn’t say I knew; I didn’t say I was certain. There was no “trial” – and no conviction and no sentence. See why I didn’t ask you? See why I don’t think you’re a fair dealer? You can’t comprehend what’s on the screen right in front of you – when it’s the words of a perceived enemy, you translate it into evilspeak. Like accusing me of shouting “off with their heads!” Do I have to spell it out for you? I didn’t say that.

As for “We might have found some privacy-protecting compromise if you bothered to ask” – what on earth do you mean “privacy-protecting”? What are you talking about? How have I compromised the “privacy” of “Hammill”? “Hammill” is just a random word, attached to a short though busy commenting history; it has no “privacy” to be compromised.

Ophelia, you didn’t answer whether you’d contacted any of the bloggers you mentioned to ask for help with your inquiries. If not, why not?

Nothing I said was meant as vouching for Hammill in any grand sense, only saying that he/she does not seem to be a sockpuppet, not in the sense of using multiple IDs on the same blog, nor in the narrower sense of using multiple IDs to talk one another up. I did due diligence (even before this post, actually). And I’m not disputing the possibility that Hammill is the YNH proprietor. It’s possible. But I think the evidence is inadequate thus far.

“The comments do generally have an appearance of substantive thoughtfulness, and of course the appearance and the reality can amount to the same thing. But…Tom Johnson did a fairly good imitation of substantive thoughtfulness at first, too.”

I’m not prepared to assume Hammill will cease being substantive and therefore impose punishment first.

My beef here is that what YNH did wrong that merited a period of exile was not that he/she followed Jerry and Ophelia between blogs, it was not that he/she disagreed with them, and was not that he/she was a concern troll. What he/she did wrong was sockpuppetry. There is no evidence of sockpuppetry here, so the whole thing seems like a vendetta at best, and an attempt to silence a critic at worst. I cannot see a good argument why that ethical failing creates some guilt by association to all who linked to the blog in good faith, or who now express similar opinions to those expressed at that site. Maybe the argument exists, but I don’t see it being offered. Nor is it clear how long YNH’s exile should last. If Hammill == YNH, should I ban him/her, or should I give him/her a chance to show he/she learned the lesson? (No, those aren’t rhetorical questions. I don’t know internet precedent for this.)

All that said, I find this troubling:

“Hammill” is just a name, and not a traceable name at that. “Hammill” has a few weeks’ worth of comments invested, and that’s all. If I damage “Hammill”‘s reputation by expressing these suspicions – which is the most I can do, and which is not a certainty – then I haven’t damaged anything very large or expensive. In any case “Hammill” has been using its anonymity to do damage to other people, so if “Hammill” gets some damage in return…is that unfair?

First, how has Hammill “damage[d] other people.” You cited some concern trolling above, which strikes me not so much as damaging to any individual as obnoxious at worst.

Second, you justify “damage” to Hammill by citing this unspecified “damage [to] other people.” Assuming that damage exists (it might!), do two wrongs make a right? Does adding the wrong of assuming four bloggers wouldn’t help you without even asking for their help make it righter or wronger?

Third, in what sense has Hammill “anonymous”? We know exactly who he/she is: Hammill. That’s a name. It’s traceable. You and I have gone over this before, but pseudonymity isn’t the same as anonymity. If you doubt that, just ask the pseudonymous posters above: SC, Yahzi, Egbert, Brian, Greg, Scote, Julian, Stewart, Locutus7, JustAl, MosesZD, Russell W, SinSeeker. They aren’t anonymous, they aren’t traceable, and I wonder what they think of your dismissive attitude towards the value of a pseudonym.

Pseudonymous commenters: Do you agree that Ophelia has a right to declare by fiat how valuable your pseudonym is, and to destroy it if she feels so inclined?

Also, people seem surprisingly exercised over the “off with their heads” comment. That was a play on the earlier Queen of Hearts reference, nothing more. Read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland!

Also, I started writing my reply before Ophelia posted hers on the issue of which bloggers she commented. I still wonder why she didn’t ask the four bloggers she cites, and what she learned from the secret one she did ask. (No comment on the irony of citing an anonymous source in an argument premised on the worthlessness of anonymity.)

By “privacy-protecting,” I mean that personal information can be obtained from an IP address. I expect websites I visit not to go around sharing my IP address with anyone and everyone, and I’m trying to behave according to the maxim that I would will to be universal law. You could have asked me to analyze the IP address in some specified ways to test your hypothesis, thus never revealing the IP address, but obtaining the same answers you’d have gotten otherwise. Instead, you made an assumption about my helpfulness, speculating without evidence.

People use screen names for different reasons, so your question on dismissing them because of the value of the screen name doesn’t make sense to me. Generally, people on blogs or discussion boards are judged by their comments, not their screen names alone.

Again, this is Ophelia’s blog; she can comment on visitors as she likes.

Josh, the only other blogger I mentioned was Knop. No I didn’t ask him. I don’t know him, I’d never interacted with him (that I recall) before Friday, I have no reason to think he would welcome a request from me.

What YNH did wrong was certainly not just sockpuppetry. It was using the sock puppets to call real, named people liars, insane, useless putrid twats, and a slew of other libels and obscenities. The people he worked with by no means think he did nothing wrong apart from sock puppetry. That’s why they no longer work with him. Just for one thing, they were profoundly repelled by his raving sexism. (Don’t say he/she, by the way. It’s not a secret that he is a he. And in fact it’s not an official secret who he is. Quite a few people have figured it out.)

I’m not disputing the possibility that Hammill is the YNH proprietor. It’s possible. But I think the evidence is inadequate thus far.

Of course it fucking is! And I nowhere said anything else. I said I was suspicious – that means “ the evidence is inadequate thus far.”

Yes I know “Hammill” has some small internet identity as “Hammill,” but I’ve said that. It has its brief history of commenting. That’s something, but it’s not much. Since I think it is using that identity to, at least, systematically smear gnu atheism as such, I don’t feel much compunction about announcing I’m suspicious of it.

Josh, let me elaborate on above remarks. Hypothetically, if a blogger were to call me a troll because of my comments, or even because of hearsay, fine. That is her right. If a blogger bans me from her/his blog, fine, that again is her/his right. Even if the blogger was incorrect. I might attempt to correct her, or not, but again, does it really matter in the scheme of things?

you made an assumption about my helpfulness, speculating without evidence.

No I did not. I have massive evidence that you are unfair to people you dislike and that I’m one of them. You’ve done I think three posts in the past few weeks commenting on posts of mine, and you misrepresented what I said in all of them.

OB in the OP: “you’d rather just spend all your time posting comments at Rosenau’s and BioLogos and Rationally Speaking and Galactic Interactions”

OB in #52: “the only other blogger I mentioned was Knop.”

FAIL.

“What YNH did wrong was certainly not just sockpuppetry. It was using the sock puppets to call real, named people liars, insane, useless putrid twats, and a slew of other libels and obscenities.”

Setting aside the idea that pseudonymous commenters aren’t “real, named people” and granting arguendo that these are “libels,” I don’t see where you’re claiming Hammill does the same things, so this doesn’t seem to address my point that Hammill has not done the bad things YNH did. All Hammill has done, according to the OP, is comment on several blogs that discuss you and Jerry and gnu atheism in general (as lots of people do), disagree with you and Jerry and gnu atheism in general (as lots of people do), and arguably concern troll (as fewer people do, thankfully). Are any of those bannable offenses, or truly a basis for outing a pseudonymous commenter who has established a reputation for generally substantive dialog?

What YNH did wrong was certainly not just sockpuppetry. It was using the sock puppets to call real, named people liars, insane, useless putrid twats, and a slew of other libels and obscenities.

And to tell complete lies. In addition to the damaging conservation event whopper, he socked up a comment thread at the Intersection with misrepresentations of comments at Pharyngula and false claims about violent sexual language being directed at the fake female socks there (which were repeated without M or K ever suggesting that they were serious accusations that should be substantiated). You all ate this nastiness up because his targets are your perceived opponents, and you should be ashamed and apologetic.

SC has an important point there – “Hammill” and other pseudonymous commenters are certainly not real, named people in the sense that Jerry and PZ and I are. (And that you are, for that matter.) That really does make a difference that matters. Surely that doesn’t need explaining.

Oh and “off with their heads” – I know it’s part of the Alice in Wonderland schtick, but that doesn’t make it innocuous.

Ophelia: “You’ve done I think three posts in the past few weeks commenting on posts of mine”

I don’t see where I’ve posted about your blog in the last month, let alone three times in the last few weeks.

Locutus7: “People use screen names for different reasons, so your question on dismissing them because of the value of the screen name doesn’t make sense to me.”

Ophelia argued that if she damaged the pseudonym/screenname Hammill, “I haven’t damaged anything very large or expensive.” Is that how you see the value of your screenname? Do you agree that Ophelia as blog proprietor can assess the value of someone’s screenname to that person, even if that person does not frequent her site? She makes a point that Hammill seems to have been commenting for about a month, and argues that this makes the pseudonym less valuable. How long did you use the name Locutus7 before you felt like it had value to you? At what point did it feel like a part of your identity?

I agree that she has a right to police comments on her site, to disemvowel or ban trolls on her site. Does that right extend to people who have, by choice or happenstance, not chosen to comment at her site?

“[D]oes it really matter in the scheme of things?” I’d say it does, not least because screennames and pseudonyms are a standard part of internet discussions, and her approach to them seems callous and devaluing to an important and valuable internet tradition (a position I’ve expressed to her publicly and privately before).

I really don’t understand your issue Mr. Rosenau. A commentor has illicited the ire of a blogger and that blogger has ‘called him out’ so to speak, challenging him to direct his critiscms directly at them or set up a place where he can be engaged. Yes it wasn’t exactly respectful but I imagine the whole thing is pretty common online. Hammil is free to respond however he pleases or not at all and should he choose to I can only imagine it will help drive the discussion forward. Afterall, what sense does it make never to engage the object of your critiscm? I would have thought accomodationists would be all for engaging.

her approach to them seems callous and devaluing to an important and valuable internet tradition (a position I’ve expressed to her publicly and privately before).

Oh yes, you were terribly worried because I asked the TB who commented on your blog if it was Tim Broderick/TB who commented at the Intersection and repeatedly (falsely) called me a liar. I didn’t say it was, notice, I asked if it was. The TB at the Intersection had called itself Tim Broderick at first then switched to TB, and it’s common knowledge that TB is Tim Broderick. It didn’t even occur to me that I was “outing” him. In any case I thought your maudlin concern for him was ridiculous, given that he has no shame about calling people liars when they’re not.

As for “Hammill”…it’s been talking about other (named) people. I think I get to talk about “Hammill.” I have no power to “police” or “disemvowel” comments by “Hammill” on other sites, so it’s ludicrous to ask if I have the “right” to do that. It’s like solemnly asking “does Ophelia have the right to kill and eat children?”

SC: “You all ate this nastiness up because his targets are your perceived opponents,”

Where did I do this? I don’t read the comments at the Intersection unless I happen to be commenting, and I don’t think I ever spent time in the comments at YNH (I read blogs via RSS reader, so rarely see comments anywhere). I linked to YNH three times, each time because of a specific argument I wanted to discuss, and in one of those cases I criticized the unhelpful tone that had crept in. Is there any basis at all for this accusation? Or are we dealing in collective guilt now.

“Ophelia and Jerry Coyne and PZ are real, named people.”

So are you. Your name is SC, you just don’t choose to go by the name on your drivers license. Orac is a real, named person, so were the pseudonymous authors of the Federalist Papers. And no, Ophelia, it is not obvious that using your given name or using a consistent pseudonym is “a difference that matters.” We’ve discussed this before, you didn’t convince me then, and you haven’t now.

Ophelia: “my reply to what you said about YNH was about YNH, not Hammill.”

But you think Hammill is YNH (which could be true), and that YNH’s sins (real sins which I take seriously) justify your inquiry into Hammill’s identity. I asked those questions on the premise that you are correct about YNH being Hammill the same, as a way of trying to figure out what your inquiry would accomplish if it were correct. If it isn’t, then YNH’s bad deeds are surely irrelevant.

So as not to monopolize discussion, I’ll step away for a bit, but will check in again later.

How long did you use the name…before you felt like it had value to you? At what point did it feel like a part of your identity?

I can only speak for myself, but it was well after a month. At that point I could easily have switched to another.

I agree that she has a right to police comments on her site, to disemvowel or ban trolls on her site. Does that right extend to people who have, by choice or happenstance, not chosen to comment at her site?

What are you talking about? She voiced her suspicions.

Nor is it clear how long YNH’s exile should last. If Hammill == YNH, should I ban him/her, or should I give him/her a chance to show he/she learned the lesson? (No, those aren’t rhetorical questions. I don’t know internet precedent for this.)

The TJ case is rather special in that some of his targets have known his identity for months, not revealing it despite his viciousness towards them. I think it was understood that he would cease posting about this group of people, and I don’t know if any arrangement was made with his school about his internet behavior. If he were starting up again under a different pseudonym (and I’m not saying that’s the case here), bloggers aware of that who host the comments of a known obsessive fantasist should think seriously about whether they should continue to do so.

And no, Ophelia, it is not obvious that using your given name or using a consistent pseudonym is “a difference that matters.”

Oh, Jesus Christ. If shit sticks to your real life name that can have real life consequences! From employers, publishers, editors, friends, enemies, landlords, banks, the police – you name it. That’s one major reason people use pseudonyms in the first place! YNH certainly didn’t want the people he worked with to know what he was doing – and for good reason: they didn’t want to work with him any more once they found out. Godalmighty…do you really need this explained to you?

you think Hammill is YNH (which could be true), and that YNH’s sins (real sins which I take seriously) justify your inquiry into Hammill’s identity.

Where did I do this? I don’t read the comments at the Intersection unless I happen to be commenting, and I don’t think I ever spent time in the comments at YNH (I read blogs via RSS reader, so rarely see comments anywhere). I linked to YNH three times, each time because of a specific argument I wanted to discuss, and in one of those cases I criticized the unhelpful tone that had crept in. Is there any basis at all for this accusation? Or are we dealing in collective guilt now.

YNH was a nasty little blog that, it should have been obvious, had an obsession with smearing a few individuals; it was not about simple criticism or disagreements. This should have bothered you. You certainly know now, and you’re still claiming he did nothing wrong beyond the sockpuppeting, which is incredible. (I said “you all” in general; I wasn’t saying you ate up everything at the Intersection; that was them, but you promoted the creepy blog.)

So are you. Your name is SC, you just don’t choose to go by the name on your drivers license.

Ophelia mentioned things TJ said about her, and then you replied with the bit about pseudonymous commenters not being “real, named people.” She is not a pseudonymous commenter, but blogs under her real name. But I’ve used this pseudonym for several years and established an identity under it, as well as having several people know my identity. It’s not one I’ve been using for a few weeks.

Orac is a real, named person, so were the pseudonymous authors of the Federalist Papers.

Orac is a real, pseudonymous person because he’s established that identity. He also posts under his real name and links to it, so he’s both. But what does any of this have to do with the subject at hand? We’re saying that you can’t do damage to a short-lived commenting pseudonym. This was also true of newspaper articles in the 18th century as well. People could say “I’m suspicious of that Codrus who wrote that article in the Aurora” without it damaging anyone’s real reputation. It’s like saying it about “Anonymous.” No one is saying pseudonyms have no value.

Seriously, last comment for now, but yes, Ophelia, the last time I linked to your blog was over a month ago, and to find three posts, you had to go out more than 6 weeks. That’s more than “a few” in standard usage.

- A far as I can tell, the word “punishment” has come up once in this thread and it’s Josh Rosenau using it, without being clear who’s said anything to raise such a subject in the first place. Or is it that you fear that Hammill will wrongly be misidentified as TJ and that TJ will then be outed as punishment for not keeping his fingers away from the blogosphere. If that is the case, “Hammill” has certainly lost nothing and I’m sure nobody intends to divulge information about TJ’s real identity unless there is certainty that he is continuing to act as an uncontained menace, as he had been before (if you doubt that, read again all that YNH wrote about Ophelia and pretend you could just shrug it off if it were about you).

- My screen name is part of my real full name and I’m not aware that I’ve ever written anything online that I wouldn’t be prepared to back with my full public identity. I know there could be reasons that people living in atheist-intolerant environments might need some secrecy (one of the reasons we fight religion is to make such a situation an impossibility – accomodationism is never going to get anyone to that particular goal), but is anyone suggesting that is what we have here? Go back over the TJ affair to see how that issue cropped up.

I don’t think Ophelia is being dismissive; I think she’s being realistic. She’s not being dismissive about the value of productive discussion on her website and she’s not necessarily wrong if she places that above being considerate or even protective to someone who gives her reason to suspect that he’s just passing through in order to snipe (i.e. to damage the discussion she rightly does value).

By the way, I’ve rarely tried, and never been permitted, to comment at the Intersection. Needless to say, no bad language was involved (unless you include that double four-letter word “Ophelia Benson”). Now, it’s not particularly important to me, but I’m wondering whether it’s important enough to you to take up the cudgels on my behalf with Chris Mooney. Surely you’ve seen what remains of the comments there after the purging. You prefer to go in sluggng against the openness and everything-on-the-table for discussion of B&W, but would rather ignore the censored wasteland of an ideological ally?

I’ve looked at a few “Hammill” comments on different sites now, too. He certainly seems to stop short of saying Gnus should STFU. There are a few places with obvious attempts to be even-handed, but he seems to get very touchy when a Gnu mentions any kind of misrepresentation by an accomodationist. I don’t know enough to settle an opinion here. If I’ve missed anything crucial, I’m open to correction.

Stewart, the content of what H. says is mostly very mild (though it lets considerable hostility to gnus show at times)…but one way to see that is as caution.

The suspicious thing is how very interested H. is. If it’s that interested…where was it before? Why has it only started talking now? Especially since now it’s talking such a lot? It seems to have way too much knowledge to be a new participant.

I did the very fair exercise of trying to disprove what you were getting at, but I failed. The comment you just linked to, all the examples are against the Gnus, even as he decries the tone in general. Nothing about the really OTT things Jeremy has written, no hint that anything Chris Mooney might ever have done might lead to a great deal of negativity towards him. He can’t know all about everything we’ve ever done without also knowing something about how the other side operates, but he omits it 100%. Not necessarily anything YNH-y or TJ-y, but there’s an agenda there about which he’s being less open than he pretends.

Is Brian a pseudonym when it’s a real nym? I have actually posted lots of crap under my name. Some stuff I wouldn’t be to proud to repeat. Usually posted under the influence of alcohol. So, I’m not gonna throw any stones. Still, I understand where Opelia is coming from.

there’s an agenda there about which he’s being less open than he pretends.

Exactly. That much is true whoever it is. The not posting on the blogs of perceived enemies ditto – unless of course I’m wrong and it has posted in such places…but I notice no such thing has turned up yet. No one has yet said “Oi, you’re wrong, I’ve seen Hammill posting at X and Y and Z, all the gnuest of gnu atheists.”

I know! But I’m not a geek – I’m a nerd, but not a geek. I don’t know any other tricks; I just know that an IP address will reveal sockpuppetry.

I’d say that the same IP used by multiple IDs is strong evidence of sock puppetry, but that two separate IP addresses do not prove that two IDs are separate people. IP addresses identify network connections, not people. So two ID’s with the same IP could be two separate people at the same internet cafe. But, given how few posters there are at B&W, it is far more likely that any two IDs that share the same IP address are the same person than not.

Sure, I know that different addresses show nothing in particular. I’m looking for positives, not negatives. I assumed Deepak was saying there are other methods, not just that a negative doesn’t show much. Even I know that!

Somewhat related: Jon Stewart did a funny bit the other night on the Daily Show where he called out Bill O’Reilly for using a blog comment as evidence of widespread Liberal nastiness. It was downright nostalgic:

I’m not at liberty to give details of how I know, but of course it’s his IP address.

I think so – I think his laying off this kind of crap was a condition for something, at least. (And I in fact never undertook not to out him. I’m not obliged to, no one asked me to, and I never did. I’m perfectly free to out him, and I have a lot of reasons to do so. Quite a few people do. It’s been very very very generous of me not to out him all this time. He has not been generous to me; not at any time. I make absolutely no promise not to out him.)

No, I think people will be just as quick to say I’m jumping to paranoid conclusions, people like Rosenau at least. Rosenau always thought TJ talked a lot of sense. That’s rather the point!

I’m going to say more, of course. Going to post. Just maybe not right away – have to track down scattered links and also have to go out soon. But I’m going to say more.

Partly because this slimy lying bastard succeeded in fooling a lot of the very people who are energetically slagging off gnu atheists now. This is part of the story. We’re not actually all that evil, so slb makes up stuff to make us look all that evil, and otherwise sensible people buy it…and then go to work smearing us.

I just re-read this thread; considering that you turned out to be right, you were very reasonable and a few others weren’t. By the way, was he only “Hammill” this time around? Do you see anything on this thread and other recent ones worth looking into further? I’ll e-mail you if you have no idea what I mean.

My original issue (my first comment) was that you jumped to conclusions with no evidence offered, and then implied that various other bloggers wouldn’t help you get the evidence without having bothering to ask us first. I didn’t know and didn’t really care whether Hammill was TJ, but I did know that you implied that I wouldn’t help your investigation without even giving me a chance to help or refuse. My “off with their heads” comment wasn’t primarily about Hammill, it was about your treatment of me and Rob Knop and Massimo and Biologos. It was only secondarily about your making conclusions about Hammill’s identity without offering any evidence (at the time). A month later, you have it. If you had asked me a month ago, maybe you’d have had it then.

You say “thought TJ talked a lot of sense.” This is only sorta true. I never got into the Tom Johnson affair itself, neither the initial report at the Intersection, nor the unraveling of that story. The comments Hammill made at TfK were all respectful of others and did make sense, and there were particular items at YNH that I thought made sense, and which I linked to. I criticized YNH’s excesses. Saying I thought “TJ” talked sense could imply that I supported the now-debunked story from The Intersection, which I didn’t, or that I endorsed all that went on at YNH (which didn’t use names with the abbreviation “TJ”), which I didn’t.

The points raised by various people now about the gniceness of gnus were not original to TJ, they go back at least 5 years. Trying to discredit those complaints by pointing to TJ’s sockpuppetry is a red herring.

Well, it’s true about what I implied, but you’ve been pretty rude about me and to me, Josh, so I think I have good reasons not to trust you.

You’re right about Hammill – and that’s what’s so poisonous. He was very careful this time to sound reasonable and adult, and more in sorrow than in anger. It worked. So more “oh dear the new atheists are so unfortunate oh dear” entered the discussion – inserted by a malevolent fraud.

Yet the gnu-haters are still pitching gigantic fits about the putative evil of the gnu atheists while ignoring the considerably realer evil of Hammill/TJ/YNH. Their radar is off.

The points raised by various people now about the gniceness of gnus were not original to TJ, they go back at least 5 years. Trying to discredit those complaints by pointing to TJ’s sockpuppetry is a red herring.

I know that, but TJ added new ones and amplified the old ones. I’m saying the current complaints are tainted by the bogus stuff TJ has inserted in the past year+. Jean Kazez, for instance, solemnly endorsed something “Hammill” said on your blog, saying it was “very important.” That’s a dirty trick TJ played on her! And you, and numerous others. It’s also a dirty trick on the gnus, of course.

Doesn’t the content of what Hammill said and Kazez thought “very important” matter? Isn’t it possible that Hammill/TJ/YNH had learned his lesson and that the “reasonable and adult” behavior (your description) was a genuine reflection of his opinions and character? If so, what harm did he do to me, to Kazez, or to gnus? Since you don’t offer a link, or a description of this “very important” claim, I can’t judge it. All you’re offering is the guilt-by-association argument: TJ is a Bad Man for being a sockpuppet, therefore anything he says is bad and anyone who agrees with him must be wrong.

Here’s a comparison. John Lott did a bunch of analyses of gun crime, and was widely cited for his “more guns, less crime” claim. He wrote a book about that research, and used the sockpuppet “Mary Rosh” to talk up himself and his research, and to attack critics on Usenet and Amazon.com. This was exposed, and hurt his credibility. But that’s not what destroyed him. What destroyed him was that his published accounts of surveys and other research didn’t match the raw data. A National Academies review of the effect of gun laws on crime rates focused not on the sockpuppetry, but on the data themselves. That’s how it should be.

You say TJ introduced new themes into the criticism of gnus, but don’t say what they are, so I can’t really reply. Maybe he did, and maybe, just maybe, despite the sockpuppetry, those points might just be valid. Pointing to TJ and saying “that Bad Man said the same thing” is simply not a counterargument, though.

Oh and, by the way, Josh, in your opinion, does the part of Tom Johnson’s apology to Gnu Atheists in which he says “I was horribly, horribly wrong in how I characterized you” belong to the old immature Tom or the new reasonable and adult one?

Oh, fuck, Josh – no, it’s not. Get a clue – I know more about this than you do. I know a lot of details about TJ’s behavior, including after he was found out. I know about the lies he told about me. I know that Hammill kept “politely” but determinedly pointing at B&W. I know that TJ called me a useless putrid twat. I know that he’s again using a pseudonym to stir up more trouble. No, it’s not possible that he is now a nice guy.

OK, but so far you haven’t shown any evidence. This was my point above, and it still is. His mere existence, or mere posting comments on blogs, is not ipso facto stirring up trouble.

And “I know more about this than you do” is not an argument. But if your forthcoming post is as unfair to me as the OP was here (and several of your comments in this thread thereafter), I want to lay out my position clearly in hopes of at least constraining the inaccuracies.

When you’ve had legitimate beefs with something I wrote, I fixed it. This post has wrongly smeared four bloggers for a month now with no correction. You have no moral high ground.

All you’re offering is the guilt-by-association argument: TJ is a Bad Man for being a sockpuppet, therefore anything he says is bad and anyone who agrees with him must be wrong.

That is not why TJ is a bad man; that was your claim in # 49, and I rejected it in #52. TJ is a bad man for far more reasons than just being a sock puppet. He’s a bad man for using many many sock puppets to tell lies about people, including me, and to call me a sexist name, and to do multiple posts saying obscene and usually false things about people he disagrees with, especially Jerry Coyne and me.

Isn’t it possible that Hammill/TJ/YNH had learned his lesson and that the “reasonable and adult” behavior (your description) was a genuine reflection of his opinions and character?

“Tom Johnson” repeatedly gave purportedly full confessions and apologies, but only after he was caught red-handed doing specifically and obviously and seriously unacceptable things, by almost anybody’s standards. Then it came out that there was other stuff his “full confessions” had not acknowledged, and he’d make another “full confession,” and again claim he’d fully fessed up.

He never did fully fess up. (And Mooney steadfastly refused to answer some easily-answerable questions that might clue us into what he’d left out.)

Keep in mind that “Tom Johnson” was himself an advocate of vigilante internet justice, attempting to out someone else and get him fired from his job for his pseudonymously-expressed opinions.

He is quite apparently a ruthless hypocrite, perfectly happy to do exactly what he criticizes others for, and far worse, in service of his agenda.

I think that “Tom Johnson” should be a pariah among anybody in either the New Atheist or accommodationist circles—he’s exactly the sort of despicably hypocritical, meanspirited, ruthlessly dishonest, uncivil character that nobody should want to be associated with—e.g., letting him comment on their blogs at all, if they realize who he is. He has all the worst traits that either side accuses the other of, in spades.

He’s also a serial offender. We already gave him second and third chances to act like he was sincere in his apologies, and he blew it, repeatedly.

We just caught him lying again—disingenuously claiming to be a newbie, not a longtime involved party, and implying that he had no particular agenda or axe to grind, and then spewing pretty much the same slanted shit.

I would hope that you would not want such a chronically dishonest person commenting on your blog, because it’s nice to get rid of people who tend to lie through their teeth, conceal their agenda, feign contrition when caught, etc.

I certainly wouldn’t want somebody like that commenting on my blog, even if they were “on my side.” I would be disturbed by the fact that somebody so untrustworthy was trying so hard to seem disinterested and trustworthy, and might be slipping things past me that he knew were false, but I didn’t.

If you have a sincere concern for truth, that’s the kind of person you just don’t want around.

(Even if you don’t have a sincere concern for truth, such people can be problematic, even when they’re on your own side—you might want to tell a politically expedient oversimplified story that is less than the whole inconvenient truth, but you’d generally like to know which arguments in your favor might turn out to hinge on flat-out lies that are embarrassingly easy to disprove, or come from sources that are embarrassingly easy to discredit.)

If accommodationists are not even interested in excluding people like “Tom Johnson” from discussions of accommodationism—known ruthless serial liars who have just been caught lying again—then I think it might be understandable for others to take matters into their own hands, and discredit such people to the fullest extent available to them—up to and including outing them.

As I understand it, “Tom Johnson” was investigated by his university—how formally, I don’t know—because he violated several clauses of the university honor code, and he did it largely on their time, and using their facilities. For that, he clearly could be expelled from his university and fired from his job. Rather than throwing the book at him, they let him just promise to stop his obsessive anti-New Atheist trolling and his pseudonymous lying.

Many of us have figured out his identity now, and have so far refrained from revealing it. We’re not terribly vengeful, and all we want is for him to leave us the fuck alone.

He just got caught lying again because he was dishonest in a way that was revealing to sharp-eyed observers, who recognized as his signature disingenuous style—it was pretty obvious that “Tom Johnson” was back, contrary to what we thought he’d promised, as a condition of his continued studies and employment, as well as contrary to what he was saying at the time.

We thought we had reasonable assurances that he wouldn’t be trolling and lying about it, and we held off outing him in the ruthless way he tried to out someone else—we’re not actually that ruthless.

Not that anybody with a clue really believed his contrition and his promises–we’re not stupid enough to think a clearly quite ruthless and obsessive serial liar who’s a chronic feigner of remorse will ever really feel morally bound to play by civilized rules, or to keep his promises—but now we’ve given him yet another chance, and yet again he’s shown that we cannot count on him being civil or playing fair in any useful sense. He’ll lie if it suits him, and if he thinks he can get away with it, and he’s willing to risk getting caught by being fairly recognizably “Tom Johnson” dishonestly trolling again.

It’s evidently more important to him to keep smearing New Atheists than it is to be honest, or to act as though his apologies to us were sincere, or to keep his promises, or even to not get caught again.

At this point, I don’t think it’s incumbent upon any of us to not be fully honest about him, including revealing his actual identity. He’s abused his pseudonymity too severely, too many times, and in too many ways for anybody to respect his right to it.

–

Note to “Tom”:

Seriously, you self-destructive kook, just stop it, PLEASE. We have your number. We know where you work, and can call your advisor any time we want.

We can call your chairman and your dean, too, and find out just what kind of disciplinary action was or wasn’t taken about your confessed and evidently insincerely apologized for behavior, and ask why and why not, and whether there’s any teeth to any of it. We can refer to specific clauses of your university honor code, and specific stated penalties.

We know where you publish, and all the major figures in your field who you might want recommendation letters from, or to apply for a job with. We can just tell them the simple, obvious truth about you, such that most would never, ever hire you because you’re just too much of a ruthless, sneaky, lying loose cannon—and most would be rather suspicious of your honesty in reviewing your scientific papers, as well. I know I would.

I, for one, am not planning on doing that, and I’m not threatening you. I am telling you that such things could easily happen, and you are stupid to think they won’t if you keep following your current course. Too many people know who you are and what you do and where you do it, and they have the internet at their disposal, too. A number of thenm are understandably rather peeved with you, for reasons you’ve confessed to, and for other reasons you haven’t.

Seriously, now, if you’re willing to go to such lengths to lie and smear people, and to repeatedly lie about your contrition and your lying, and you just can’t leave it alone, even after repeatedly getting caught, then why on earth would anybody trust you not to falsify data in a scientific paper? I know I wouldn’t; I’d guess you have some significant frontal lobe problems that disqualify you from a career in science.

If you keep this shit up, you should seriously consider finding a very different career. Seriously, for your own sake, seek professional help, and find something more productive and less self-destructive to obsess about. This is the kind of behavior that’s unbecoming a scientist, and for which you’re likely to keep getting caught. There’s not much point in pursing a professional career in science if you don’t have more self-control than that, and can’t keep yourself from impulsively blowing your credibility somewhere along the line, even if none of us outs you over this.

—

Note to Josh:

If you don’t want “Tom Johnson” outed, you might tell him you think he should lay the fuck off and leave the Gnu-bashing to people who haven’t already discredited themselves so thoroughly. You might tell him his contributions are not welcome on your blog, because he’s seriously blown it already, and brings down the tone of the joint.

If accommodationist bloggers are not willing to tell a self-confessed, ruthless, contrition-feigning, serial lying obsessive smear artist to take a hike from the comments sections of their blogs, they should not expect us to forget it.

We will definitely remember that the next time we hear about how terribly “uncivil” the commenters at Pharyngula are, and how badly they reflect on PZ himself for letting them comment there, and all that rot.

Seriously, you self-destructive kook, just stop it, PLEASE. We have your number. We know where you work, and can call your advisor any time we want.

That kind of wishful thinking doesn’t work. The implied thread–even if it is supposed to not be you who is the implied threat–just shows Tom that you **aren’t** doing anything, that it is a bluff. Time to stop bluffing and just name him. It is pretty clear that TJ will do almost anything to avoid being personally accountable for his actions. That needs to end. No threats, implied or otherwise, to tattle on him. Just name him. The time has long, long, long since past for that to happen. There’s really no excuse now.

What is it with you Mooney and your ideological compadres being incapable of admitting to being wrong? Your post should have been: “Ophelia, I’m sorry for what I said here. I was wrong, and you were right. I sure look stupid.”

But no, we get pretentious wanking about how you were right even though you were wrong, and Ophelia was being so Uncivil, and blah blah blah. Maybe you should just stop talking for a while before you embarrass yourself even more.

I agree with Scote at #111. Out this pyscho as he’s very unlikely to change spots. Some neurotics need to hit bottom before they bounce back to human-normal with society’s assistance. If he doesn’t then who cares and it will be make it just that little bit easier to win this fight.

Outing him would also serve as an example to other would-be kooks like him that they’ll be caught and punished, so they shouldn’t even think about it doing the same stupid shit. Unfortunately this is the only “argument” these types understand.

If we’re really serious that this is a fight that’s worth winning then these are the actions we must take. Anything less indicates we’re not certain that it is.

He’s had ample warning. File formal complaints with his institution. And then don’t waste good gnu energy on him. He’s whining about best-selling authors, Well compensated, sold out hall public speakers and the smartest most articulate bloggers around.

I have a career in the public service sector; Sam Harris says things i cannot say with my many faithed clients-though I would dearly like to. Gnu Atheists are all doing a great public service. We need to talk about the many cruelties glorified in the bible. We need to talk about the american education system suffering under the weight of pentacostal cupidity, and abandoning the soundest science of the nineteenth century for elaborate fantasies.We need the gnus. We nee to talk.